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Post by Martin Stett on Feb 28, 2024 14:26:53 GMT
2007 Scavenger Hunt #6
Mad Detective (Directors: Johnnie To, Wai Ka-fai) Big fan of this film. Yeah, it's bizzare and illogical at parts, but it's such a unique and interesting take on the police procedural that I can't help but love it. Top 10 Johnnie To film for sure. Wai Ka-fai's Detective vs. Sleuths from 2022 is very similar to this and worth watching as well, with Sean Lau again in the role of the insane detective (which he portrays so well in both films). Detective vs. Sleuths is what would happen if Fincher's Seven was adapted into a wild shonen anime I'm conflicted on both, but I've gotta give points for originality and balls to Wai. As for To, this is only my third. I didn't like Throw Down and instantly forgot it happened, and Life Without Principle was very, very good. MD ranks in the middle, as a neat curiosity.
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Post by stephen on Feb 29, 2024 15:31:02 GMT
Fallen Leaves: Well, we have our actor to play David Lynch in a biopic. Also really loved the aesthetic of this film -- felt very much like if Robby Müller had lensed it. As for the movie itself, I liked it but it hasn't really stayed with me like I'd hoped. Still, Alma Pöysti's nomination at the Globe is inspired as fuck.
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Nikan
Based
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Post by Nikan on Mar 2, 2024 16:02:03 GMT
Irma La Douce (1963) - Almost wanna call it the ultimate Billy Wilder experience... it's him more-confident-than-ever in himself that he can get away with anything once he gets that motherfucking pen in his hand and his band members lined-up. He lets the beast run amock here and I honestly don't know how to feel about it, how to come back to earth from wherever he has sent me. This is The Apartment scratched to epic porportions. A film too fantastic for it's own good: too long, too playful, too well-acted, too satisfied with itself, too everything to work entirely or not lose any of it's audience along the way... but as far as superheroes go, gimme Jack Lemmon emerging from Seine river like a moustached Merry Poppins to shove a fish into a pimp's mouth and go on his way to a miraculous ending.
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Post by countjohn on Mar 6, 2024 3:35:49 GMT
Blue Velvet
Big Lynch fan but for some reason never got around to it. Now there's a perfect movie, just the right balance of artistry and conventional entertainment, could have still been a 10/10 just as a straight thriller but of course there's so much more going on than that. And I love Michael Caine but that was Hopper's Oscar man, I'm going to be having nightmares about Frank Booth for a month. The rest of the cast is good too, terrific score, beautiful color palette. This is Lynch at his mainstream peak firing on all cylinders. Can see how this set up Twin Peaks but even that was never this good.
10/10
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Post by mhynson27 on Mar 11, 2024 7:05:26 GMT
Dune: Part Two
Pretty good stuff, probably liked it slightly better than the 1st. Experience would have been improved if I wasn't so goddamn tired.
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Post by stabcaesar on Mar 14, 2024 9:40:45 GMT
American Sniper - Caught it on tv some time ago. I thought it was ok and is by far the best of Cooper's nominations (not that he's fantastic or anything). I find it bewildering that people call this pro-war or jingoist though as I find it extremely on the nose with how anti-war it is, which is one of the reasons why it's not particularly outstanding.
I also find it quite disturbing that many reviews on letterboxd call Chris Kyle a mass murderer who enjoyed killing. I mean ... what do they expect from active combattants??? Stand there and have enemy combattants practice range on them?
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Barbie
Full Member
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Post by Barbie on Mar 15, 2024 13:28:22 GMT
American Sniper - Caught it on tv some time ago. I thought it was ok and is by far the best of Cooper's nominations (not that he's fantastic or anything). I find it bewildering that people call this pro-war or jingoist though as I find it extremely on the nose with how anti-war it is, which is one of the reasons why it's not particularly outstanding. I also find it quite disturbing that many reviews on letterboxd call Chris Kyle a mass murderer who enjoyed killing. I mean ... what do they expect from active combattants??? Stand there and have enemy combattants practice range on them? I have to give this a rewatch, but when I first watched it, yeah I thought the jingoistic and pro-war criticism wasn’t true. Idk if I’d say it’s anti-war, but I’ll reserve that for when I do a rewatch I disagree with the second part of your post, and I’m surprised you’d say that. He was a sociopath who murdered civilians and used war zone as an excuse to do so. Civilians aren’t enemy combatants. He said he had no regrets about any of his murders. He sounded like a typical bloodthirsty Republican
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Post by mhynson27 on Mar 17, 2024 2:51:45 GMT
Muppet Treasure Island
It's just a lot of fun man, and that's all I can ask for.
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Post by stabcaesar on Mar 17, 2024 15:27:53 GMT
I disagree with the second part of your post, and I’m surprised you’d say that. He was a sociopath who murdered civilians and used war zone as an excuse to do so. Civilians aren’t enemy combatants. He said he had no regrets about any of his murders. He sounded like a typical bloodthirsty Republican I've not read his memoir so Idk what Chris Kyle really was like, but those reviews read like they think he was a mass murderer because he was in combat, which is ridiculous.
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Post by stabcaesar on Mar 18, 2024 2:31:48 GMT
The Taste of Things - The beginning sequence is genius, then at some point in the middle I was so over how fucking pretentious these men are about food (even if I do admit that the food looks incredibly satiating and delicious), but then the focus turns to Eugénie and it improves again tremendously. Binoche is glorious here, and the warm, exquisite cinematography is amongst the very best in an extremely stacked year, almost a character of its own. I also think Binoche’s yellow gown is the single best piece of costume of the year. Honestly France picked the right film to submit as the IF representative. It’s better than Anatomy of a Fall in almost every aspect.
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Post by stephen on Mar 18, 2024 12:43:05 GMT
Finestkind: I thought this was going to be the tale of a fishing vessel caught in a bad situation at sea and the crew would have to heroically battle the elements to survive. Turns out that happens in the first ten minutes, and the rest of the movie becomes The Town. And look, I'm not arguing against any movie that decides it wants to be The Town at some point. Ben Foster is reliable as always (although you can tell there are moments when he really, really wants to be let off the leash but the movie won't let him do it), he's got a good rapport with Toby Wallace, and Tommy Lee Jones infuses a nice bit of gravitas to the story. The real MVP, though, is Clayne Crawford playing a Ben Foster-esque drug lord and I wish the whole movie had been about him.
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Mar 18, 2024 12:59:04 GMT
A 4k restoration of Olivier Assayas' Late August, Early September (1998) - This was definitely a heady experience. It's not a perfect film, but it's a very compelling one. The cinematography is swoon-worthy: richly textured, frenetically paced - honestly I think it's worth watching for it alone. The cast, unsurprisingly, are all aces - especially Mathieu Amalric (I might make a separate thread devoted solely to him), Jeanne Balibar, and Mia Hansen-Løve (in her film debut!).
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Post by Martin Stett on Mar 18, 2024 18:11:22 GMT
2007 Scavenger Hunt #7
The Man from Earth (Director: Richard Schenkman) A university professor has quit his job and is moving away with no notice of where he intends to go - wanderlust, he says. He never likes to stay in one place for too long. When his friends all show up without warning, ruining his plans for a stealthy exit, he asks them if they'd be interested in a sci-fi story he's contemplated, about a man cro magnon man who has lived without aging for 14,000 years. As he tells the story in the first person and his academic friends push him for historical or scientific details, it becomes clear that he's talking about himself and what he claims to be real events that have happened in his long life. Which isn't possible and he's joking with them, of course. Right? The acting is mediocre, the sound mixing is terrible, the musical score is overbearing, the cinematography and blocking leaves people blurred on the outside of the frame for no reason... this is a low budget, pretty unprofessional production. But that doesn't matter if the writing holds up. This is a thinking cap movie with no emotional resonance whatsoever, merely asking questions and having people debate answers. It's a movie of high-falutin' "smart" people discuss things that don't matter to anyone on earth with a life, but it's still interesting enough as a concept to keep things afloat. Unlike 2023's wonderful The Artifice Girl - a movie dedicated to ethical discussions and what the right course of action to take may be - there is no point to the conversations, there is no urgency or point to the debate. Whether or not John is immortal like he says, nothing will change one way or the other. There is some lip service paid to medical testing, but the movie doesn't care about ethics. There is stuff about religion and God that is brought up, but writer Jerome Bixby doesn't hold much respect for western religion and doesn't make any arguments against John's religious views that wouldn't instantly be torn to shreds by anybody raised in a religious background. And yet, it is intriguing as a single room "people talking" drama - for what it could have achieved more than what it succeeds at, perhaps. The concept is strong, the reticence of our mysterious core character (who remains too much of an enigma throughout) to share his life could be very cool to explore, the way everyone responds to him is something that could really catch the eye. None of it quite succeeds, but I want to give props to this movie for attempting it. I want more movies like this. I just hope that they're not quite so intellectual, but more interested in real world ideas.
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Post by sophiefox on Mar 18, 2024 19:30:06 GMT
Kung Fu Panda 4
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Post by ireallyamsomething on Mar 20, 2024 7:15:28 GMT
The TV Set (2006)
Does for Working In TV what Requiem for a Dream did for Drugs.
A very breezy and entertaining watch with a grim view of the industry, where art is almost a dirty word and the creative people are squashed by the executives - who make decisions based on random clueless audiences and potential ad sales.
Messiah of Evil (1973)
One of those films that can be called unpolished & incoherent - both as a criticism & as a positive. Even the normal characters barely act or sound human - though maybe that too makes it more like a nightmare. Two sublime set pieces. Felt at times like it could've been a silent film.
P.S. They should re-release this as Point Dune Messiah to cash in and send me some $$$
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Post by Joaquim on Mar 20, 2024 13:31:25 GMT
I was not expecting The Devils (1971) to be as funny as it was. A high 8/10, borderline 9
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Post by ireallyamsomething on Mar 20, 2024 22:09:55 GMT
Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)
Just the other day I was thinking to myself, what was the last film I saw that was genuinely new and surprising and unprecendented and which made me go wow, cinema can do this...Symbio-taxi-psycho-plasm (it's easier broken down!): Take One may be that film. Now, there are other works I've seen which have echoes of this (Nathan Fielder's work, Further Beyond by Molloy/Lawlor) but the fact that this was made decades ago makes it astoundingly impressive.
While watching this I knew that I wanted to read or hear discussions afterwards - due to the nature of the film (an 'experimental film' in the truest sense) there's so much to question and unpack, and I was giddy to discover that I didn't even have to wait until the end - a lot of incisive and funny commentary is provided in the film itself!
Lastly, beyond the layers of self-reflexivity and ambition on display, it's just an entertaining film - a valuable document of the time that emanates and celebrates the joy of art and creativity.
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Post by stephen on Mar 23, 2024 20:58:08 GMT
Drive Away Dolls: If Cut Bank is the Dollar Store version of a Coen Brothers crime film, this is the Dollar Store version of one of their comedies. What could've been a riotous goofball tale is let down massively by poor editing, aimlessly low-brow gags, extremely broad caricaturish characters, and a frankly unsatisfying climax (pardon the pun). That said, I think it'd be fun if Jamie and Marian run into the Love Lies Bleeding duo while they're on the run in the next movie.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 24, 2024 12:06:09 GMT
Dry Summer (1963) - 1st time watch So at the start of the year I made a promise NOT to watch many old films and just see "new stuff".......ah well that didn't last and the "new" stuff has been 3 months of bullshit......thanks Hollywood! Another "classic" I never saw for some reason - and visually one that pays off - told in an almost funny amount of deep close-ups .......this Turkish film - sort of a Jean De Florette crossed with family duplicity is very melodramatic but it pays off and in its ending has a kind of rightful beauty........almost a savage beauty even at a very convincing fight rife with double meaning, irony and um......water The acting is merely instructive but I won't forget the movie .......
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Post by Weaver Addict on Mar 24, 2024 16:00:53 GMT
The Wife (Glenn Close). I know some have called it a Hallmark movie but I don't give a damn. She hits the right notes to me and deserved that Oscar. I am most definitely biased by my favorite 80's actresses: Sigourney, Close, Lange, Pfieffer, Spacek, Streep, Adjani, et Al..Sorry about my spelling but I am drunk. I love this scene, and Jon Price is aces When he asked "if I'm such a horrible person, why did you marry me? and she starts cry and says "I don't know." I weep.
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Post by TylerDeneuve on Mar 24, 2024 19:10:05 GMT
André Téchiné's Alice and Martin (1998): Juliette Binoche is her typical luminous, hypnotic self as a fragile Parisian violinist who loves a younger, mentally unstable male model (Alexis Loret) in this non-linear tale co-written by Téchiné, Olivier Assayas, and Gilles Taurand. I gather that this wasn't well-received at the time of its release, but I quite enjoyed it! It was a perfect way for this Francophile to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon. Carmen Maura and Mathieu Amalric* shine in key supporting roles, as well. *As a matter of fact, I went ahead and added this to the list I compiled of Amalric's key performances - an against-type supporting role opposite Binoche in a film by a major auteur - I take it that pacinoyes and I are his only real fans on this forum... more great acting for us, I guess! Peep this shot of a teen Amalric at the Louvre! Just one more reason to see the film -
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Post by Brother Fease on Mar 24, 2024 22:46:50 GMT
Last one I saw was Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One. I am a big fan of the franchise, and this one didn't disappoint. It was 2 hours and 43 minutes of pure joy for me. Never felt too long. The plot was convoluted to some degree, but it didn't bother me. I wanted to see elaborate stunts. Plus, I cared about the characters. It definitely deserved its Oscar and BAFTA nominations for Sound and Visual Effects.
Note: I have absent from this board. I got the big C the night before Oscars. Not cool. But I am doing much better.
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Post by ireallyamsomething on Mar 25, 2024 22:11:28 GMT
The Trial (1962)
Finally got around to it this week and was struck by how deeply strange this film is even though I had read the novel (tbf was quite a while ago so I didn't remember everything) - much of it also has to do with how every frame and location looks nightmarish and almost otherwordly. It was a lot to process in one viewing and hard to keep up with at times but for the visuals alone this is quite an achievement (and what a cast!)
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Barbie
Full Member
Posts: 887
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Post by Barbie on Mar 27, 2024 2:35:45 GMT
Rain Man
It was a good movie, but I don't know if it was Best Picture winner material though. I was expecting this movie to age poorly, but idk it seems pretty ok to me. The strength of the movie lies with the performances from both Hoffman and Cruise, who held his own against Hoffman. Man, I miss this Tom Cruise. People forget he's a damn good actor. I wonder if he'll ever go back to doing projects where he can flex his acting muscles
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Post by stephen on Mar 27, 2024 12:56:20 GMT
The New Boy: Warwick Thornton's out here shooting shots that would make Deakins and Malick salivate. The New Boy is a sweet little fable, anchored by an excellent new find in Aswan Reid, whose character says so very little but communicates so much with a glance. Cate Blanchett's reliable as always in the role of the conflicted mother superior of this outback abbey for wayward boys, but it's Deborah Mailman as her aide-de-camp Sister Mum that steals the show. I didn't love the movie as much as Thornton's previous Sweet Country, but this one has a personal touch to it that makes up for it (as Thornton has said it is semi-autobiographical at points).
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